iShowU: Screencasting For the Mac

31 Aug 2007

I needed to do some screencasts for something at work. We have a site license for SnagIt, which is an insanely useful screen capture program. It also can also screencast, but clearly TechSmith wants you to buy the insanely overpriced Camtasia Pro.

I wanted to do some editing on the screencasts because, let’s face it, I write better than I talk. Windows Movie Maker, also included on my work machine, is ass to work with. So I tried importing the videos captures from SnagIt over to my Mac to do work in iMovie HD. None of the videos–even the uncompressed ones–would show on my Mac. At all. Even more ass.

So I cheated: I installed a VNC Server on my work machine and used iShowU to make the screen capture from my Mac. Worked beautifully. And had I just forked over the $20 earlier in the day, compared to the $300 Camtasia Pro would have cost, it would have saved a heck of a lot more of my time than it did.

Even so, I am now able to take my screencasts, edit them in iMovie HD, and send it to my co-workers. And if I remembered that I could have done the work from Parallels or VMware, then I could have also ditched the VNC requirement too!